EDITORIAL : OVERDUE CHANGE AT THE U.N. SUCCESSOR TO BOUTROS-GHALI SOUNDS THE RIGHT NOTE FOR REFORM.

IN his farewell speech Tuesday, United Nations outgoing Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali couldn't resist taking a final undiplomatic jab at the United States.

The departing U.N. head made the remarks as he came to the end of his five-year term of office with a list of accomplishments too short to satisfy Washington - especially in not having done more downsizing of the organization's bloated, costly bureaucracy.

Boutros-Ghali's farewell comments included the assertion that U.N. member states had created a financial crisis that actually slowed reform. It was an obvious reference to the United States letting its payments to the United Nations fall into arrears because of dissatisfaction with the pace of reform in the international organization.

To us, that suggests that Boutros-Ghali still doesn't accept the importance of cutting back the U.N. bureaucracy's size and excessive ambitions. Too bad, since that is the reason U.S. leaders decided to veto his bid for a second term. And it's also too bad from the standpoint that U.S. concerns about the U.N.'s overzealous overreaching were a significant reason that this nation's unpaid debt to the United Nations has grown to roughly $1.3 billion - more than one-half the total amount the United Nations is owed by its members.

The man who will follow in the footsteps of Boutros-Ghali as secretary-general is Kofi Annan of Ghana, who seems more accepting of real reform. We certainly hope he will lead the United Nations in that direction.

If Annan succeeds in bringing about significant organizational reforms, it will be especially noteworthy given the reality that he is a veteran U.N. insider who could reasonably be expected to have a certain protective bias concerning the institution.

Indeed, he is the first career U.N. official to rise through the ranks to the highest office. And many of his new appointments to top deputy posts on his transition team are people he worked closely with as head of the U.N. peacekeeping department.

Still, Annan - who took his oath of office Tuesday - used the opportunity to urge the United Nations to ``make change our ally'' and ``recognize it as a necessity.''

He added: ``If all of us in this hall together . . . can make this organization leaner, more efficient and more effective, more responsive to the wishes and needs of its members and more realistic in its goals and commitments, then and only then will we serve both this organization's high purpose and the planet's best interests.''

We hope that when the 58-year-old Annan officially begins his term Jan. 1, it will be the start of a concerted, successful effort to carry out that pledge.